


His Smile

by Iammissingautumn



Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: (though not in first person), Good warnings, Half of this is explaining his experience being POW, M/M, None of which are graphic but, Short depictions of death, being shot, seeing someone die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 17:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16837069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iammissingautumn/pseuds/Iammissingautumn
Summary: Nick wanted to remember.





	His Smile

Nick wondered if Wayne kept his word. It was something that replayed in his mind over and over once he heard he had to serve. Something he wanted to embody the moment he found out.

“If I don’t make it back, I want my last memory to be your smile, and how it felt to be close again”

That… he wanted that. He wanted to never forget his first love, something that took years for him to accept. Yes, it was scary, falling in love when they could die for it. He doubted that he would have acted on anything if Johnny hadn’t said anything, if Johnny hadn’t told him to pursue, if Johnny hadn’t said he knew Wayne felt the same. A drunk night in which small words changed his life.

Nick wished he had thanked him more before he left. Star wrestler, smart mathematician, excited to help his country when asked. They hadn’t gotten a letter in months, no word of him. He regretted most the things he did with Johnny, moreso of what he didn’t do. Leaving silence to hope he understood how much he cared and wanted the best for him. Nick wasn’t sure if Johnny understood.

So the moment he could grab a paper and pencil he wrote. Wrote of being sent away, how he was scared and that he loved him. Signed with a pretty-lookin' name, an annoying nickname he got teased with in school. Vague so he could tell the news without calling himself out, just so he could tell the news and say ‘I love you’ in the same letter.

He took all the pictures he had of Wayne, any songs he had that reminded him of him and paid attention till he couldn’t anymore. Trying to remember how he felt. How his lips and his hands felt. His breathtaking smile.

Nick remembered, he kept a few photos and sent letters when he could. But he was so far… it took a lot of time for them to get from one to another. But he hummed songs Wayne used to sing, he stared at the photos and tried to remember how it felt to hold him as he had on his last night. And did what he had to till he could come home and see him again.

When Nick forgot was after he saw a number of his crew get shot, shot, shot, dead. When he and one other boy survived. Being stored in barracks and being told the reason they were turned in was his co-pilot's fault, still killed because if he went anywhere else he’d be the target of death anyway. Cooking to take care of the almost strangers. The name he once loved to say was lost off his tongue, washed away by the food he ate if he got any. Desperate when supplies stopped coming from the red cross. Sleeping on the floor so the others didn’t have to. Taking lead in the small group of people he could take care of, stripped of the small necklace that held a picture of a once young W-... someone he loved in it. Never remembering more than the small W that had been imprinted on it. Something he had slid his thumb over to remember the feeling what felt like millions of times.

Nick Radel forgot what the warmth of holding someone he loved felt like when he saw someone gets shot because he and another priso- soldier went on a job to try and sneak to look where the red cross packages had after the boy got sick. Only the other one caught, shot on sight. When broken stories played on repeat as he talked to different people, as he lost weight as if he was sweating it off.

He forgot there could be more after he got sick, forgot he could go home- forgot about the possibility of such. Not till they were saved, liberated after a night of endless gunfire. He didn’t feel normal, he was given medicine and food so no one back home could see how he changed. He was given care, treated to. A whole month before he could go home. Yet still, he didn’t feel normal.

Nick never felt exactly how he was before. Radel never got what he wanted. But he got home, so maybe that was as close as he could get. Even if now he remembered Wayne’s name and smile, no need remembering someone who’s trying to forget you. Unanswered letters and calls being a testimony to that. Ignored as if he didn’t exist.

Why couldn’t it be just like it was before?


End file.
